first come, first served

phrase

first come, first served

phrase

1

Idiomatic One will be dealt with in the order in which one arrives.

This complicated situation means that strategically managing services through the central Manchester area and beyond is not possible for signallers in the Greater Manchester area, and trains are invariably dealt with on a 'first come, first served' basis.2020 January 2, Philip Haigh, “Is there relief to congestion along Castlefield Corridor?”, in Rail, page 22:

Derived terms: first-come-first-served
Related terms: the early bird gets the worm

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.